Wolf In Sheep's Clothing
by HalfASlug
Summary: Life can be a tightrope when your best friend is an ancient being of great power but also a bit of an idiot. Rose is happy to walk it though.


_A/N: This fic is the most dramatic case of happy plot bunny turning into angst I have ever experienced. It was the cutest little thing and then got all serious and threw itself into the abyss. Anyway._

_Disclaimer: The Doctor belongs to the BBC. It says so on the inside of his coat._

* * *

Giggling themselves breathless, they drop unceremoniously onto the jump seat, his arm leaning across the back and her hand squeezing his thigh.

Rose can't recall what started them laughing but she's sure it has something to do with her rescuing the Doctor from a clan of what had looked a lot like Mr Blobby but with very sharp teeth. It's been a while since anything truly shocked her, but today has proved that life on the TARDIS, life with him, is always going to throw these surprises into the mix.

"I could have got out of that myself," he tells her with a sniff.

"Really?"

"Yes."

"_Really?_"

"Rose Tyler," he says, leaning forward. She copies him, knowing the threat to his body language is as real as the innocence in hers. "Are you doubting me?"

"Of course not," she gasps.

"It sounds like you are."

She's teasing, even as she shakes her head. There's no doubt between them, not anymore. They both know they will follow the other anywhere. They both know they trust each other with their lives amongst other things. They both know that humans wither and die, but they'll deal with that if it ever catches them.

"Because that - that right there-" He pokes the end of her nose. "-looks like doubt."

"You're seeing things," Rose giggles before seriously adding, "In your old age, y'know."

The way that eyebrow of his slides up his forehead until it's partially obscured by the mess of his fringe almost makes her crack, but not quite. They've been playing this game too long for her to be considered an amateur.

"I'm a spritely young thing," he says, straightening his jacket.

"That remembers the crusades."

"So do you," he points out. He'd taught her the basics of sword fighting, which came in handy sooner than they'd expected, and then they'd had a picnic that Rose hadn't wanted to know the origins of. A normal day in their abnormal life where she isn't the damsel, he isn't the knight and together they get the job done with more laughter and style than anyone else could dream of.

"Not the point. Fact is, you'd be stuck without me." Rose doesn't miss the way that his eyes dart to her tongue as it pokes out between her teeth but she does miss the feel of him pressed against her side as he leans back. She's tempted to follow him but something about the way his face has softened stops her.

"True," he all but whispers with a smile that crinkles his eyes and warms her singular and oh so fragile heart.

He looks at her like he did after Krop Tor and has done ever since. There's no barrier anymore, no guard rail between her and whatever it is he feels for her. As long as it stays silent it stays safe, just between them so the universe can't destroy it.

"So next time your hip's playing up," Rose grins, nudging the hip in question, "you can have a rest in bed and I can go save the day."

He chokes on a laugh and she narrows her eyes, taking to opportunity to shove him a little. Of course, he springs back to knock into her shoulder, but that's how they are. They'll both push, but never too much, too scared the other will run, though they couldn't really be separated for too long.

"What? I'd be a great Doctor!"

The Doctor scoffs as Rose rises, pushing his legs of the console to stand in front of him.

"Look." With a glance at his carefully styled shock of hair, Rose begins pulling hair grips out and securing the bulk of her hair to the top of her head so the ends fall into her eyes. A few twists to get it to stick up more and she grins and waits as his mouth moves around words he hasn't thought of yet.

"What _are_ you doing?" he manages at last.

She shrugs, flicking her hair away from her face. "Experimenting with backcombing."

"Hey!"

"Hang on," she chuckles, ignoring his protestations and pulls his crossed arms apart in order to get to his jacket. He doesn't stop her as she presses one hand over his left heart, the other wrist deep in his pocket. It's been a while since they cared about invading in each other's personal space. Her face is so close to his that if this were a normal relationship - because this _is_ a relationship, it just doesn't have a name - then she'd probably kiss him as she rummages. Instead, she smiles at him and he looks at her like he didn't quite believe she was real until he felt her breath on his face.

Maybe one day she will be brave or stupid or reckless enough to just do it, close the gap, bridge the minute distance that remains, or maybe he will. Until then they have this dance in no man's land that is just a thrilling as everything else they do.

She triumphantly removes his glasses from his pocket and the moment fades. Rose doesn't mind because another one is never far away.

"Now we're talking," she proclaims, carefully putting them on. Even though she was prepared for the world to distort around her, her vision barely changes and she can still see the Doctor trying to look thoroughly unimpressed. "No one could tell the difference now."

"Oh I think they could." He makes a grab for the glasses, but Rose leans back against the TARDIS console and out of his reach.

"Nah, not if I just bounce around, be rude and act like a massive dork."

"I'm not a - a massive dork," he splutters, sitting forward.

Rose pretends to consider this, narrowing her eyes at him. She's all but certain he sits up straighter under her observation. "Pretty sure all that Oncoming Storm stuff is just a mistranslation."

This is one of the rare times that words fail him and he settles for waggling a finger at her. "The TARDIS doesn't mistranslate! Do you, old girl?" he croons, stroking the coral strut behind him.

"God, you're so weird," Rose laughs, giving his knee a shove. She drops the pitch of her voice and adds, "I'm so impressive with my tight suit and side burns, but I stroke a machine in my spare time." The Doctor glares at her but ruins any effect it may have had by covering his sideburns as though to protect them from her mockery. "Shame you haven't got the leather jacket still," sighs Rose. "I could do the accent."

"No, you couldn't," the Doctor snorts.

She cocks an eyebrow and he mirrors her. Accepting the challenge, Rose clears her throat dramatically and scowls. "Now, Rose," she says sternly, "go back t'TARDIS. I'll mek us cheese cobs f'tea."

To be fair, it isn't a bad attempt, just a bit of an over-exaggeration, and the Doctor shakes his head with a disbelieving laugh. "That's racist. Ish. At the very least it's mean." He folds his arms again and his open collar gapes a little more, revealing not one, but two undershirts. It's almost enough to distract her from the conversation.

When her concentration makes its way back to his face, he's trying to look offended but it doesn't float. This game is almost too easy. After all, she spends almost every waking moment with him and his quirks and habits are as probably more familiar to her than her own at this point.

"Weeeeell."

There's a heartbeat where Rose thinks she may have overstepped a line but then his lips quirk and she knows she's okay.

"Did you just -?"

"Ooh I know!"

She almost skips to the door, giggling the entire way. Behind her she can hear him scrambling to follow.

"Here we go," she announces, pulling his coat from where he always hangs it and hurriedly shoving her arms into it. "Now it's perfect."

"Really?"

"Oh yes," she says in that deep voice again, trying to imitate the way he throws his head about and nearly sending the glasses flying.

He looks partly resigned to her teasing now. "I do not do that weird... nodding... thing."

"You do all the time," she insists, marching up the ramp. "Rose Tyler, how dare you doubt me? I built Rome in a day using only plasticine and gave Neil Armstrong directions."

"Am I supposed to be you now?" he chuckles as she starts moving around the console, stopping only to re-spike her hair. "Does that mean I get to walk off and find myself some peril?"

"Nope."

"That is not how I-"

"Did I ever tell you about the time I met King Canute and saved him from an alien sea creature? Not a sea monster - a sea _creature_. A creature made from the sea. Took weeks to get the sand out of my shoes."

Rose grins at him, her tongue sticking out of its own accord and sees that the Doctor is watching her, his face too blank for it to be unintentional.

"I should fix this part of the TARDIS," she continues, pulling on her ear lobe for good measure. "By fix I mean beat with a mallet until I have to put out a small fire. Only then will I-"

"Is this really what you think of me?"

It's his tone that stops her more than the words. He sounds somewhere between hurt and guilty and his eyes are closed off so she can never work it out for definite. Slowly, Rose lowers her arms until she feels the sleeves of his coat fall past her hands.

The Doctor looks nothing like he did before she started this stupid conversation. That Doctor radiated a sort of reckless abandon and joy that was infectious. That Doctor could be mistaken for a human if you didn't listen to the words. Before her stands a being that is entirely alien for no man could wield such power from a simple look.

Rose has seen this man play with time like it was a toy and stop death by telling fate that it was not happening on his watch. She knows he has killed billions, saved even more and beat the devil himself. She has seen politicians, armies and all kinds of evil flinch under that ageless stare but she refuses to.

"No," she answers at a whisper because it's the truth or at least part of it. Does he really think she is as naive as to think that the hyperactive best friend and the frightening almost-god aren't the same person?

She stands and waits as the many layers of the Doctor fight over which should answer. It would be incredibly stupid of her to pretend she knows the first thing about him, but she knows a lot of the things further down the list. Right now he believes he has her fooled into thinking he's harmless while he knows he could end everything that ever was if he was having a particularly bad day.

She knows he is isn't and that, as long as she is with him, he won't.

While she never really knows where she stands with him, Rose knows where she is right now; beside him through thick and thin or between him and a bad decision.

The Doctor closes the gap between them, sadness pouring off him, and removes the glasses from her face. He carefully pockets them with a sigh.

"Good," he tells her and Rose isn't sure if he means it as a threat or relief.

Rose doesn't break eye contact until he turns and walks away. There's a metaphor somewhere in her drowning in his coat but she's concentrating too much on breathing to fully construct it.

He is ending this on his terms because that how he wants it but Rose isn't time and she isn't the universe. She doesn't bend to his will.

"It is part of you though." He pauses as her cracking voice reaches him. "Daleks probably wouldn't be scared of you if they knew you as the Massive Dork, but I wouldn't be here if you was just the Oncoming Storm."

He doesn't move but Rose sees his shoulders tense. From this angle she can't tell if he's the chastised schoolboy or the furious teacher so she moves to face him.

"You always act like a happy little traveller but it's like you think you're this - black cloud over everywhere you go. Why can't you be both, yeah? Or something in the middle?"

When time finally restarts after she finishes speaking, he cups her cheek and gazes at her with an unfamiliar expression. It's not until he moves away, into the depths of the TARDIS that she recognises it as pity.

Rose listens to his slow footsteps fade and, not for the first time, suspects they see him completely differently in the story they are both writing hoping never to reach the final chapter. The one thing they seem to agree on and are in denial about is that it will not stop with them living happily ever after.

He should know she's seen far too much to believe in happy endings. Had done even before she met him, really. It doesn't mean they can't enjoy the middle bits though.

His coat begins to weigh heavily on her shoulders, almost as if the world was actually there, and Rose wonders if this is what a child feels like to be caught playing dress-up in their father's clothes.


End file.
